Page 3 of Rescued by the Alien Bull Rider (Cowboy Colony Mail-Order Brides #6)

JOLENE

I spent half the night trying to find an interstellar shuttle service that would take me to Zabria Prinar One.

But for some reason, all the legit services kept telling me the same thing: it wasn’t an authorized landing planet for civilian ships or any sort of tourist travel.

Basically, it seemed that no one was allowed to just fly on over there.

Which made no sense, since obviously the pretty Magnolia in the picture had flown there and landed just fine.

But I’d always been stubborn. And I’d made up my mind.

Which was how I ended up on a fast-but-alarmingly-rickety, unsanctioned shuttle piloted by a skinny, greasy-haired human who referred to himself as Bones.

I tried to ask him where the name came from, inquiring if that was a given name or a nickname while very much hoping he wasn’t going to use my bones for anything weird. But he didn’t answer.

Nor did he do anything to my bones, luckily.

What he did do was deliver me to Zabria Prinar One, as paid-for and promised.

Except for the part where he just dropped me in the middle of a random field.

“Um. Excuse me?” I said as he jutted his chin towards the open shuttle door. The Zabrian Prinar One sun was setting, illuminating kilometres of swaying grass and…

Well, not much else.

“Excuse yourself,” Bones replied. “Out you go.”

“I’m not going out there!” I tossed my bag down and then plopped myself heavily on top of it. To indicate just how very much I did not plan to walk out alone into some empty alien field.

“You paid me to get you to a planet with no civilian landing access,” Bones said slowly.

As if I were very, very stupid. Which I was starting to feel like I was.

“It’s risky enough to drop you here. I’m not getting arrested or having my ship locked down just so I can bring you to the authorities’ door. ”

“What if I paid you more?” I asked, sweat beginning to dampen my pits.

I didn’t really have that much more to offer, to be honest. Pa did pay me for working the ranch with him, but it wasn’t much.

Besides, a good portion of that income had gone into Sal’s coffers before the pregnancy, and then into slowly stocking up on baby supplies afterwards.

“Can’t pay me enough to risk my ship getting confiscated,” Bones said. “Sorry, lady.”

“You don’t sound sorry!”

I got to my feet, then looked out the shuttle’s door again. Bones had already informed me of his “no refunds under any circumstances” policy. I doubted I even had enough money left to hire him to take me somewhere like Elora Station, or back home to Terratribe II.

Home.

That isn’t home for you , I reminded myself bitterly. Not anymore.

Bones sighed impatiently. “Look, there are animal life signs a couple kilometres from here. Lots of them. And one that seems humanoid.”

“Like… Like a herd? Or a ranch?” I asked, my dread swooping, turning to hope and making me dizzy in the process.

I ripped my bag open, surveying the contents.

I could make it a couple of kilometres, right?

Even though I was pregnant as fuck, I’d stayed active outside of riding horses.

I had decent footwear on – my own Terratribe II leather boots, so old and worn that they miraculously still fit my swollen ankles.

I had some water, protein bars, and pre-natal vitamins.

Only one humanoid life sign…

So not one of the married ranchers. That might not bode well.

A human woman would be really nice to see right now in this unfamiliar place.

I’d probably receive a warmer welcome from someone like Magnolia than I would an unknown alien male who had no idea I was coming and who would now have to get me oriented and set-up with the bride program.

He might not be very excited about taking me into town, wherever town was here.

But what choice did I have?

And who knew! Maybe I’d luck out and end up knocking on the door of a nice, friendly cowboy!

Energized by that possibility, and by the future I’d already started building for myself in my head the entire trip here, I zipped up my bag, gave Bones a salute-like wave goodbye, then stepped out the shuttle door.

“The life signs are to the north,” he called to me.

“Great! Thanks,” I said, hiking the strap of my bag up higher on my shoulder and clomping forward through the grass.

By the time it occurred to me to ask which way was north on this planet, the shuttle had already lifted off.

Damn.

Only a couple of kilometres…

But a couple of kilometres in the wrong direction would be a big fucking problem, to say the least.

You never fucking think-

No. I couldn’t let that become the voice in my head right now. For better or worse, I was here. And as the Zabrian Prinar One sun set, turning the sky to flame, I had to move, had to do something , or else risk spending the night alone in the alien darkness.

I should have asked for Magnolia’s comms tablet info. According to Sal, communication to and from this planet could be very spotty. But being actually on the planet should have left me able to contact her. She could have at least directed me which way to walk.

I took a deep breath, spinning in a slow circle, thinking like a rancher.

I may not have been a Zabrian, but I still knew some shit and figured it had to transfer over, at least a little.

Behind me, thick trees formed a wide knot of rapidly darkening forest. Beyond them lay mountains that, in other circumstances, I would have stood there gaping at in admiration.

They looked like they’d been carved from copper, the reddish sunset turning them to rich, burnished metal.

But in these circumstances, I didn’t have time to gawk and whistle at the untamed beauty of the Zabria Prinar One landscape. I had a ranch to find.

I doubted the ranch would be in or beyond the trees.

Bones had said the life signs were only a couple of kilometres away, and that forest looked more than a few kilometres deep.

Plus, it made a lot more sense to have your herd out here on the more level plains where they could roam and graze.

Assuming that’s what alien herds did, anyway.

A niggling worry told me that I might not be quite as prepared for this planet as I’d hoped I was.

But I punched it down. Even if the alien cattle here floated through the air and munched on clouds like cotton candy instead of grass, I’d figure it out.

I’d always been a quick study, especially when it came to animals.

Some alien cowboy would want me, damn it.

Resolute – optimistic, even – at my chances against the falling night, I raised my chin and began walking out into the plains.

If worse came to worse, I could use my comms tablet’s emergency settings.

It could send up a bright red beam, like a flare, and emit an SOS signal that nearby devices could pick up on.

If there even were any nearby devices…

There was no guarantee the nearest rancher would have a comms tablet like mine. But at the very least, he might see the flare.

A flare that I ended up using much earlier than anticipated.

Once the sun was gone, replaced by the ghostly light of three big moons and stars I’d never seen from this angle – maybe never seen at all from Terratribe II – I got the heebie-jeebies. It was cold, too. My breath frosted in puffs before me like little floating skulls of doom in the air.

Jesus. Skulls? Dramatic, much?

But I was spooked. So a mere thirty minutes after sunset, when I hadn’t yet stumbled upon a Zabrian ranch or its owner, I put down my bag, lifted my comms tablet, and engaged the emergency beacon.

A spray of red light arced upwards from the device, dazzling and bright.

It would be visible for kilometres. Baby Girl gave a wiggle, as if she could see it, too.

Maybe she could. I knew some light got through to her in there.

Sometimes, when she was too still and I got worried, I’d press the flashlight function of my comms tablet against my belly, only to feel her prod against that very spot a moment later.

Like she was giving the light a little high five.

Or trying to kick it away because it was ruining her nap.

But whether Baby Girl was reacting to the light or not wasn’t all that important right now. What mattered was that somebody else saw it and came galloping to my rescue.

Fortunately, it was not long afterwards that I did, indeed, hear galloping.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t an alien horse.

It was an alien bull.

It came at me from a distance in the darkness, a wall of muscle and bone and horns that looked more like antlers than what I was used to seeing on cattle on Terratribe II. But there was no mistaking the fact that those antlers could gore me like I was nothing at all.

Instantly, I turned off the beacon on my phone. I wrenched my bag from the ground, holding it in front of my stomach, as if that would somehow be enough to protect Baby Girl. The creature slowed when it was maybe ten metres from me, then stopped, tossing its massive head and pawing the ground.

Obviously, the light had attracted it to me, but it wasn’t too happy I was here even without the beacon activated now.

This might not have been a species I was familiar with, but I knew its stance and angry pawing screamed aggression.

Avoiding eye contact with the bull and still clutching my bag firmly against my front, I began to walk slowly – very, very slowly – backwards.

I wouldn’t be able to outrun an animal like that even if I weren’t pregnant six ways to Sunday.

My best hope was a quiet escape without further angering a bull with antlers that had to span two metres.

But it didn’t seem to like my plan. It watched me in my slow retreat, then huffed out a steaming breath, lowering its head to charge.

The last thing I saw before it slammed into motion and I fell, startled, to my ass, was the whip-like snap of movement behind the bull.

It was barely more than a silhouette beneath the silvered moons and stars. Hot, muscled velvet in exquisite motion. A mount and its rider pummelling over the plains.

The rider gave a shout, raising an arm and swinging rope above him, the shape circling overhead like a frayed halo. Alien eyes pierced me with white light.

He was beautiful.

And he looked fucking pissed.